OF SELBORNE. 221 



acquainted with : every kingdom, every province, 

 should have its own monographer. 



The reason, perhaps, why he mentions nothing of 

 Ray's Ornithology may be the extreme poverty and 

 distance of his country, into which the works of our 

 great naturalist may have never yet found their way. 

 You have doubts, I know, whether this Ornithology is 

 genuine, and really the work of Scopoli : as to myself, 

 I think I discover strong tokens of authenticity; the 

 style corresponds with that of his Entomology ; and 

 his characters of his ordines and genera are many of 

 them new, expressive, and masterly. He has ventured 

 to alter some of the Linnaean genera with sufficient 

 show of reason. 



It might, perhaps, be mere accident that you saw so 

 many swifts, and no swallows, at Staines ; because, in 

 my long observation of those birds, I never could dis- 

 cover the least degree of rivalry or hostility between 

 the species. 



Ray remarks that birds of the Gallince order, as 

 cocks and hens, partridges, and pheasants, &c. are pul- 

 veratrices, such as dust themselves, using that method 

 of cleansing their feathers, and ridding themselves of 

 their vermin. As far as I can observe, many birds that 

 dust themselves never wash : and I once thought that 

 those birds that wash themselves would never dust; 

 but here I find myself mistaken; for common house 

 sparrows are great pulveratrices, being frequently seen 

 grovelling and wallowing in dusty roads ; and yet they 

 are great washers. Does not the skylark dust? 



Query. Might not Mahomet and his followers take 

 one method of purification from these pulveratrices? 

 because I find, from travellers of credit, that if a strict 

 Mussulman is journeying in a sandy desert where no 

 water is to be found, at stated hours he strips off his 

 clothes, and most scrupulously rubs his body over with 

 sand or dust. 



A countryman told me he had found a young fern 



